The Rose Chronicles: Book One
by Jenniball
Summary: The first book in The Rose Chronicles, a series of Vampire Diary-esque novels told from the point of view of Marissa Vanholder, a girl who's fairytale life is disrupted by her association with vampires.
1. Chapter One: Grad Ceremony

**Chapter One: Grad**

This was it! I couldn't believe it! Graduation!

I was spring-loaded as I catapulted out of bed, fingers already itching for the bobble-head pen I knew was tucked away somewhere amidst the sea of office supplies that would have made any other teenage girl cringe in horror. Staples would have been proud.

I stumbled across its flawlessly engineered tip, rearing majestically out of the trashcan. Charming. No doubt Caleb's handiwork. Uncommonly enough I couldn't dredge up the right sort of enthusiasm with which to tell him off this fine Monday morning. _Monday. _Never had that word sounded so good to my ears.

Locked and loaded, I poised the quivering fountain tip over a fresh sheet of lemon-scented paper. Meringue, if you want the details. What to say about graduation…? I mean, what _wasn't _there to say about graduation? For me, it meant another freshman year. I'd already gone through three of those in my life: Kindergarten, Junior High and what had been the most challenging of them all. Now that I'd surmounted those three stages, one more shouldn't have seemed like such a big deal. Of course, this was real life. The consequences weren't detentions and a slap on the wrist anymore. I should quote myself on that.

A brisk rap on the door made me jump out of my skin.

"Riss, you ready?"

"Almost, mom!" I promised, scrapping the unfinished entry and snatching my lovely, forest-green robe off its hanger on my closet door. Three cheers to being paraded downtown at high noon in full-body gowns. Hip hip, hurrah!

The sidewalk felt like molten lava through the soles of my flip-flops. I'd second-guessed myself at the door, but who needs something practical like flats or sneakers when you can go with rubber that has the consistency of paper?

"I didn't think sunscreen would be necessary," I retorted petulantly.

Shayna rolled her eyes and flashed that good-girl smile at the crowd. There were strangers, literally _tourists_ waving at us from inside their cars! How cool was that?

"How much further?" I panted. Being wedged between the tail end and the middle, neither one of us had much of a viewpoint. I craned my neck around Kyle Pilsner's big shoulders.

"Do you see anything?"

"Oh, stop whining. We'll get there when we get there. Just…live in the moment. It's not everyday you're gonna get stared at by strange men _other _than your boyfriend."

"Oh, thanks," I hissed, jabbing her in the ribs. She stifled a giggle, but a snort slipped past. Kids two rows up glanced around to see what was so funny, causing a sort of domino effect. It started with Rodney Hilshire locking eyes with my best friend (and part-time swimsuit model). Of course, he probably got caught up in some fantasy he'd jacked from a Sears catalogue, and the next thing you know he was holding up the entire line. And things just went downhill from there, from Stacy Andrews being "budged in front of" as she put it, to this real weedy kid Patrick stepping on Kyle's coattail and…do I really need to explain it to you? All because of our spectacular power of allure. What?

At the door with Shay, still holding on tight to each other because neither one of us can believe we're here. Shayna briefly butted heads with her ex, whose current fling was in the line directly ahead of us and who gave Shayna the evil eye when Brock steered her off, arm-in-arm. She uttered something somewhere between a sigh and a growl as they paraded off, a picture-perfect disaster waiting to happen.

"It won't last," I lamented. She didn't buy it. As punishment I was dragged along behind her to the buffet table. I felt like a car. She was the tow truck.

"Shayna, you don't have to eat to get over him, you just have to…"

"Such a _jerk!_" she huffed, spewing cheesecake crumbs all over the front of my gown.

"Come on."

"Little home wrecker."

"_Shay_, come _on_, we're getting ready now. Remember? To _graduate?_"

Her whole face lit up. "Oh yeah," and she took off muttering without me. I watched her go with a mixture of relief and remorse. I didn't want to have to watch my best friend and I grow up and grow apart. Then a pair of hands closed over each eye.

"Guess who?"

I spun around, immediately engulfed by my boyfriend's signature Old Spice/old brandy cologne.

"Happy graduation, baby," Jared murmured, handing me the bouquet of roses. I felt like a soap opera.

I got hot all over. Like the blushing bride, only not so…bride-ish.

"I can't believe you brought me flowers! Thanks, baby."

He winked at me. "Anytime. So." He started rubbing his hands together over-eagerly. "When's this thing kick off?" I rolled my eyes.

"Don't sound so excited, its just graduation." _Ha. Just graduation._

"Well, is there like, food here or…hey, food!"

"Yeah, um…" Great, so my boyfriend is a food junky. No big deal or anything, except when we move in together after graduation I was sort of hoping our lives would be _normal._ Oh well. Jared was worth it in a way that couldn't be described. Unless you counted the envious looks I recieved from various sophomore girls and their post-pubescent boyfriends. I trailed mindlessly after Jared to the buffet table, juggling my unwieldy bouquet in both hands. _Wait, what?_

There was a sort of riot taking place in front of the punch fountain. Jared had some girl by the front of her robe, while she took turns swinging at his head. Other girls – whiny, snatchy girls – were clawing their way in between them whilst the frantic grad committee hollered for security.

I heard the word _bitch_ and _bastard _a lot. Obviously not from the same person.

"Jared!" It wrenched itself out of my throat before I could stop it. I watched the brunette bitch take a lethal stab at my boyfriend's foot with her five-inch stilettos, and had to rein in the uncontrollable urge to lunge at her myself. I didn't notice the sea of black parting the crowd behind us until the leather holsters came out.

"Whitney, calm down!" a porcelain blonde interjected. Her _friend _bore down on her with a scathing remark, then proceeded to shower Jared with the same sort of abuse.

_Someone do something! _my mind screamed, but my mouth wasn't doing anything about it.

"Get off me, you crazy…" I strained to hear more, but I'd lost his voice in the encroaching throng. But hers I heard, crystal clear.

"You _bastard! _I'm gonna f***ing sue you! You're gonna rot in jail for what you've done, you –

And the rest cut out to static inside my head.

So. Graduation day. Boyfriend (and criminally insane stalker) spending the night in jail instead of watching old horror flicks and making out on the couch with me. Terrific. I cuddled Hubby for support, but he wasn't interested in anything that didn't involve food or the next door neighbor's poodles. Is this what my life had amounted to? Was I destined for dog-ladydom? When my mom walked in and found me crashed on the couch, she did what she used to do when I was little and tucked the afghan in around my shoulders. That night, I dreamed of rose petals.

/

Jared called while I was sleeping. I pretended not to hear the phone, but after so many rings, you're pretty much obligated to check who the genius on the other end is. In this case it was my boyfriend. I still hadn't quite recovered from the shock of watching _armed _cops handcuff him at _my_ graduation ceremony. It seemed almost surreal, like a dream. Maybe it was? My hand snapped up the phone before my mind could catch up.

"Hello?" I sounded almost breathless. He did too.

"Baby, baby, baby…I need you to come down here."

Even with no one there to see it, I cocked my hip indignantly.

"Is that so?"

"What are you talking about? Of course that's so; _I'm in jail._ So come on, bring some money from that big old bank account of yours and they'll let me go."

"I…I…I don't think so."

I felt like my mind was doing double takes. Had I really just said that? Jared was equally as stunned.

"What?"

"I said I don't think so. You brought this on yourself; you're the one who –

"Who got assaulted by a drunk-ass chick at your stupid little grad! I'm not playin' Mars, come bail my ass out."

"Ugh, I am so sick of –

"Come on, baby. Please? _For me_? You know you love me. And I'd do anything in the world for you…"

_Oh crap. _He had me right where he wanted me and he knew it. The hand clutching the phone began to shake.

"I, um…my mom's calling me, I have to go now."

"You've gotta be f-

I slammed the phone down before I could hear more.

With Jared out of mind and out of sight, I tried to focus on trivial things. Like homework.

_Oh right, you're a grad. A free woman. No more homework for you._ So what was I supposed to do with myself all day? Homework took up the better part of my schedule.

_You could call Shayna?_

But she was hung over from a party last night. A party that _I _didn't up attending (not that I attended many) because of my asinine _boyfriend._

I love my life.

End of Part One.


	2. Chapter Two: Hubby

**Chapter Two: Hubby**

Was it just me, or was my life one endless barrage of disappointments after another? On top of my un-celebration, I was now confined to my room for the foreseeable future. Why? Because _someone _leaked the dirt to my parents about my little housing plan after grad. And by someone I mean Shayna. Actually, _my _parents interrogated _her _parents, who in turn interrogated _Shayna._ So in the end it really all winds down to my parents after all. So much for my freedom. Wait, what was I talking about? I was _eighteen!_ A legal adult. And here I was, cooped up in the bedroom of my parent's house, _grounded._ My life was a Greek tragedy. Minus the Greek.

After a wary inspection of the hallway and an even closer inspection of my sanity, I wrenched open my bedroom window and clambered outside onto the slick tiles. The night air hit me like a freight train. I felt almost woozy. The stale air inside had screwed with my head. I felt like a wild animal being released from captivity for the first time. This was what being a teenager should feel like. Scratch that; _an adult_. And I knew just what to do as soon as I somehow managed to maneuver the roof.

Jared was the first thing on my list. The second my feet connected with the soil I was running. _Sprinting_ down Maine Street. The moonlight chill was deliciously forbidden, curling up my spine. I could feel my heart thudding in stride with my lopes, and for a jarring moment I forgot who I was. Besides the obvious; an idiot. I skittered to a halt. Seriously? What was I thinking? The police station was like a million miles away and I was going to run there in my PJ's. As if.

I high-jacked my mom's SUV. _Sure_, she'd hear the engine and_ sure_, she'd call the cops, but it wasn't like I had any other choice. Except the normal person thing to do, which was nothing at all. But if my mom was the sort of genius to leave her keys in the glove compartment, then she had it coming. I resisted the uncontrollable urge to rev the engine as her beloved clunker sputtered to life. The stench of gasoline pervaded the car. Lovely. I switched to my high beams (it's not like there was going to be anyone else on our road at night) and pulled out into the street. A light flickered on in the upstairs window. _Crap._

I tore out onto the cul-de-sac and skidded away. Howling dogs followed in my wake. I felt like such a badass. That's a good feeling. Though probably not the best to carry with you to a cop shop. It almost made me forget to feel the mandatory "scarred-for-life-humiliation" that went hand-in-hand with driving this piece. But then I remembered that it was night, and the windows were tinted.

My high beams guillotined across the face of the station. I parallel parked (a miraculous feat for yours truly) and jogged up to the double doors. I jiggled the handle. Brilliant. It was locked. I mashed my face up against the glass and squinted around inside.

"_Marissa to base, Marissa to base_," I hissed into my very real (not) walkie. With another peek-about inside, I concluded,

"_There appears to be no alien life forms, chk, over_."

"What are you _doing?_"

I almost died on the spot.

"Huh?"

"What are you doing here, little lady? The station's closed for the night."

"No, um…I know. I was actually looking for my boyfriend? I believe you arrested him."

The security guard-type person uttered a long, throaty laugh.

"We ain't got many criminals in here these days. How old's the kid?"

"Er, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-one, huh? And you?"

"_Eighteen_," I peeped.

"Hmph." He didn't seem to approve. Wonder why…? "Jared Mathieus. That's his name?"

I nodded too eagerly. "Yeah! I came to bail him out. Here."

The dude took a step away from the handful of bills I'd thrust under his nose. "Your boyfriend got bailed out a couple hours ago."

"A couple hours ago?"

"Yeah, right before closing. Now if you wouldn't mind exiting the premises…?"

"The what?"

"I'm required by law to ask that you exit the premises, ma'am."

"Oh. Yeah, um, sorry…but do you know who bailed him out?"

"Do I look like a cop?"

"Well…"  
"I'm not!"

I couldn't figure it out. A couple hours ago? What did that mean? Like, one? Two? _Seven?_ Weren't these people supposed to be professionals? I collapsed back against the warm leather seat. Who would bail _Jared _out of jail? I knew for a fact that he didn't have any close friends. Well, none that I knew of…I wonder who that chick was? Whitney what's-her-face. It made me boil just to think of her with him. But that wasn't reality. She probably mistook him for someone else. Jared was a little bit neurotic, but he wasn't a psychopath. Far from it. The day I met him, at the beginning of Grade 12, I thought he was just a dropout. He would loiter around the field after school, or in the parking lot, leaning against the door of his slick Camaro and enticing girls with that wicked smile. And then it was my turn.

Equation: Good Girl + Bad Boy = ?

Solution: Who cares, I was too young and naïve to bother.

He was slumped over in a corner booth, fiddling with the lid on his paper coffee cup. I eyed him dubiously from across the room. Why wasn't he at my school picking up girls? Wasn't that, like, his day job?

Despite a lifetime of scruples from two uptight parents, I made a beeline straight for stranger danger. And what do you know? He looked up. And smiled. The smile was what did it. He gestured to the booth across from him, but I wasn't that gullible. Okay, maybe I was. I was practically eating out of his hand by the time the café closed. And then he wanted my number. And then my street address. And soon something so intimate, so personal that I cringed away from the thought. I'd thought about having sex with Jared. We'd even come close once. That is until my parents walked in the door and found us making out on the couch. That was nothing compared to what they _could _have seen. We'd avoided each other's cribs after that. Jared droned on and on about this pad he had lined up for us in upscale Vancouver, but I had yet to see heads or tails of the elusive condo. Let alone his crib. That's right. Ten months and I had yet to set foot in my boyfriend's life, where he hung his hat or whatever it is old people say. He retaliated with foolproof excuses that I couldn't counter. After all, if a smile was all it took to do me in, I'd say I don't have a very reliable defense mechanism.

I pulled into the driveway around 11 pm., and breathed an audible sigh of relief. The house was steeped in blackness. I killed the engine once I'd idled close enough to the house and stepped out into the gravel.

_Crunch crunch._

I practically jumped out of my skin. Knee-highs probably weren't the best sort of shoe to be stealthing around in. With every step, another hideous crunch.

_Crunch…crunch…crunch, crunch, crunch._

I bit my lip. This wouldn't do. I wasn't even wearing socks in these. Oh well.

Hopping up and down on one leg, I managed to shimmy out of the left boot. Lovely. Now I just had to stand on one bare foot in the gravel and pray I didn't injure myself in some very preventable way or another.

I was almost out of the second boot when my mother's scream crackled across the yard. _Shit. _

I stood there in the moonlight, a scared little girl, her bare feet cut and bleeding. I could feel all the blood draining away from my face and seeping into my legs, making them heavy. Lead heavy.

"_Mom?_" My voice barely made it over a whisper. I managed to clear my throat over the massive lump.

"MOM!" The night waited with me. I could hear the black snags, furling in their branches like leafy caskets around their pocked faces. Only the dead knew true sorrow. And then I heard her. Or I thought it was her. It could have been a cat, snagged on barbwire. It could have been one of those birds that emanate people chattering, laughing, weeping. But it was my mom. She staggered upright off the lawn. I could see her now, haloed in silver, her face white, black eyes.

"_Mom?_" The scared little girl had never really left. This wasn't my mom. This was a ghost.

"Marissa," she croaked. She dropped her head in hitching motions, so that it looked like she was gesturing to whatever was draped across both arms. I hadn't noticed before. Now that I squinted however, it looked like a giant burlap sack or something. _Oh god, please don't let there be a body in there…_ an irrational voice prayed. But it wasn't a bag.

"Marissa," my mother sobbed.

My feet felt like ice in the open air. I squeezed my eyes shut.

_Whatever happens now, you have to be strong, Marissa._

So I opened my eyes and crossed the yard to my grieving mother, and the body of my dead dog, sprawled lifeless in her arms.

"Hubby."

End of Part Two.


End file.
